Paul Hollywood’s new book is a home-baker’s bible (Picture: Peter Cassidy)

Cookbook review: Thanks to The Great British Bake Off, Paul Hollywood is probably Britain’s best-known bread man. In his new book, Paul Hollywood’s Bread, each recipe is followed by a dish either made with bread or designed to be served alongside it; smoked salmon pâté with stout bread; chickpea curry with curried naan; and ice cream made with satsuma and chocolate brioche. He’s an enabler; there’s all the more reason to start baking if you can make dinner out of the results. It’s a good, straightforward book that illuminates the process of working with yeast without going into the kind of bread-head detail that would alarm the casual bystander. I tried the Sicilian lemon and orange sweet bread and produced a loaf that looked satisfyingly similar to the picture without any fuss or bother. I would have tried the matching limoncello trifle recipe too but there’s no bread left.

Step 1: Put the flour in a food mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add salt and sugar to one side and yeast to the other. In small amounts, add the milk, eggs and butter. Mix on a slow speed for 3min, then on medium for 4min until a soft dough. Tip into a bowl, cover and leave for 1hr.

Step 2: Grease a 23cm round, deep springform cake tin. Mix the zest with the lemon juice, almonds, candied peel and cranberries. Add to the dough and mix by hand. On a lightly floured surface, shape the dough into a ball. Place in the tin and inside a plastic bag for 3hrs, until dough has risen to top of the tin.

Step 3: Heat oven to 200C. Bake the bread on the middle shelf for 20mins. For the topping, stir the egg whites, sugar and ground almonds in a bowl. Take out the bread and cover with the almond paste, almonds and a little sugar. Cook for 20min at 180C, covering loosely with foil towards the end if over-browning. Leave the bread to cool for 10min, then release the sides of the tin. Place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Step 1: To make the lemon curd, whisk the whole eggs, egg yolks and sugar together in a bowl. In a thick-bottomed pan over a very low heat, gently heat the butter, lemon zest and juice until the butter has melted. Add the egg mixture and stir constantly over the low heat until the mixture has thickened. This will take 10 minutes or longer; don’t rush it. Strain the lemon curd into a bowl, cover with a disc of baking parchment to prevent a skin from forming and allow to cool.

Step 2: To assemble the trifle, cut the sweet bread slices into quarters and use to line a serving bowl (about a 2 litre capacity). Drizzle the limoncello over the bread slices and spread the lemon curd on top. Break the meringue into pieces and scatter over the curd, then spoon on the custard.

Step 3: In a bowl, whisk the cream with the icing sugar and vanilla extract until it hold soft peaks. Spoon the cream over the top of the trifle. Scatter over the toasted almonds and candied lemon zest. Chill until ready to serve.

Step 1: Mix the flours in a large bowl and add the salt to one side of the bowl and the yeast to the other. Add the olive oil and 250ml of the water and mix with the fingers of one hand. Add as much of the rest of the water as you need to form a soft dough; rye flour takes a lot of water so you should need most or all of it. Tip the dough onto an oiled work surface and knead well for 5–10 minutes or more, until the dough is smooth and elastic. Add the cooled lardons, working them well into the dough. Form the dough into a ball and put in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with cling film or a tea towel and leave to rise until at least doubled or trebled in size – at least 2 hours.

Step 2: Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 3 equal pieces. Knock back by pushing down on the dough with the heels of your hands, then your knuckles and fingertips, and folding the dough in on itself several times. Form each piece into a ball.

Step 3: Oil a 20cm springform cake tin. Roll out a ball of dough to a 1.5–2cm thick circle, to fit the tin and lay it in the bottom. Scatter over half of the cheese. Roll out a similar disc of dough and lay on top. Add the rest of the cheese. Roll out the final ball of dough and place on top. Dust with flour. Put the tin inside a roomy plastic bag and leave to prove for about 1 hour, or until well puffed up. Meanwhile, heat your oven to 220°C. Bake the loaf in the oven for 30 minutes. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.